


Last Meal

by Arithanas



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cowboy slang, Cowboys & Cowgirls, Cowpocalypse!, Devil's herd, First Time, M/M, Rimming, by the metric ton!, weird west
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:26:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16393724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: The met the Old Scratch's herd by old Carrigan’s place.





	Last Meal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



> Many thanks to rosefox who wrangled the dickens that dished this tale better than any schoolmarm.

Ezekiel twisted the rope against the bough of the old dry apple tree. Old Thunder wouldn’t run away in a storm of hail, let alone this chilly sundown on the trail. 

Jonah, who used to be a buffalo soldier, was unmounting by his side. Roger and Timoteo were still wrangling the steers with Pius, Hosanna, and Trinity, the boys from the Mission that that sin-buster Pro cajoled Timoteo into taking. That burly Mexican with the full grown beard could be guilted into anything. 

“Them boys are really God-sent,” Jonah said, resting his hand on Ezekiel’s shoulder. “Setting up camp is better than putting the beeves together, I reckon.”

Ezekiel didn’t reply. Jonah’s touch was enough to make his knees buckle, but the way his fingers felt through the rough fabric of his shirt robbed the air from his lungs. Catholic guilt or not, Ezekiel could risk eternal damnation to feel those fingers on his naked skin. If he could just muster the sand to tell Jonah he was soft dowing on his ornery ass…

The racket of the buckboard saved Ezekiel the need to cover for his silence. Sandra, the slagander calico that passed for their cookie—and the reason for Timoteo’s guilt—came breezing by the deadening where camp was to be set. She held the reins so tightly that the old pony who drew the wagon was canting with his head all high. She was talking to herself, but that was nothing to write home about.

“I won’t stop here. Nuh-uh, not by old Carrigan’s boothill!”

Ezekiel fell in alongside the wagon. “There's a long slipe to go before the next town,” he said, trying to reason with her. “And we need food!”

“It’s Martinmas, you fool!” 

“Ah, burrow milk!”

Johan, as was his wont, cut the kit and caboodle by restraining the pony with his big hand.

“By good’s rights, that’s our prog, woman.” Jonah caressed the neck of the pony with one hand and his holster hip with the other. “We'll take what we need first, then you can cut stick, if that’s all right with you.” 

She snorted, but her hands slacked the reins. Ezekiel climb up the wagon and scared out beans, chuck wagon chicken, and axle grease enough for diner and breakfast, and a crooked spider to cook it all. The wagon got a wiggle on as soon as Ezekiel’s boots touched the packed dirt, and Sandra went her way, jawing to herself. 

Peckish people ask no questions, especially cowhands with growling bellies. Timoteo promised Sandra a sound whaling, but they all know he wasn’t saying it in earnest. 

The mission cowhands ate like all that is between hay and grass and took the bobtail guard. Ezekiel noticed the expert way they all saddled up as he lay his weight in his old bedroll. Jonah and Roger started twisting the tiger’s tail. Timoteo rolled a smoke and started yammering with his dreambook in his hand.

“Sandra said this was old Carrigan’s boothill,” Ezekiel said, loud enough for Timoteo to hear.

“Sandra spends too much time talking with idle schoolmarms.” Timoteo said, with a thick accent. His accent always was worse when he was tired. “It used to be a farm. It belonged to a Carrigan, old folk was he. God-fearing fellow. Then, it wasn’t a farm. All they could find was all his cattle dead. Nothing of him. His house crumbled to sticks too many years ago. All that’s left is the old barn over that hill.” Timoteo pointed eastwards as if they could see the place. “Old schoolmarms said a heap of bosh to Sandra, and they spook her. Schoolmarms have too much study and too little head, if you ask me.”

“Yer probably right,” Ezekiel said and turned his back to the fire.

The next time Ezekiel was aware of the world, Jonah’s voice was caressing his ears and Jonah’s hand had taken a good grip on his hip. Ezekiel’s dreams felt exactly like that. 

“We got hair in the butter, partner,” Jonah whispered in Ezekiel’s wattles by way of rousing. “The shavetails sold out with the best horses, and Old Scratch is playing tricks on the steers like you won’t believe...”

Jonah's words cleared Ezekiel’s mind and forced him to open his eyes. In the moonlight, the first thing Ezekiel noticed was Roger’s boots, and behind them, the indistinct mass of the cattle.

Then, a cow opened its eyes. They glowed red. The same red of glowing embers. Another one opened its eyes. And then another. And soon, the whole herd was mooing and looking at him. Some of them started to rise on their hind legs. They were impossibly big, impossibly high, and impossibly red...

“Luddy Mussy!” Ezekiel cried out before he could think that was a bad call.

Roger, up to snuff as he was, was on his feet and jumping over the saddle of his cayuse before Ezekiel’s cry died out in the night. 

All hell broke loose in a wink. 

The cows approached, mooing, walking on two hooves. Jonah fired his barking irons twice. Timoteo lay in the dust with his brains slatted over a rock before he even had time to fart. Old Roger was grassed by a walking cow and his cayuse began making a ruckus to wake the devil. Ezekiel barely had time to put the licks in, and then fled before the closest cow could stomp in his flea trap. As he was running, Ezekiel made Lot’s wife's mistake and turned his head, only to have his peepers witness how the cows feasted on Timoteo’s carcass.

“Time to cut and run!” Jonah cried, shooting again into the herd. 

Ezekiel felt the weight of his revolver hanging from his waist, but he doubted six lead plums would do any difference against two hundred head. Providence offered them that old barn Timoteo had mentioned, and Ezekiel reckoned that that was the only way to go. Cows on two hooves were slow, but they had a long stride. 

Jonah was just a step behind, determined to go standing against that hellish herd. Ezekiel was having none of that and, with the strength only fear provides, pulled his fellow cowpoke inside the ratty barn. Once they both put the bar against the doors and looked around to discover a pile of bones, they both started to cotton to all that had come a cropper.

“Do you have bullets?” Jonah asked, searching every pocket he wore.

“I have six, and that’s the end of it.”

“We better get hiding betwixt that ancient mule’s breakfast,” Jonah said, pointing to the hay mow. “I doubt the beeves can climb a stair.” 

Once in the darkest part of the barn, Jonah turned around, let go his gun, and put his hands around Ezekiel’s face. Kisses Ezekiel had had in the past, but this was as different as whiskey and tea. Jonah found his way as though to the manner born, and, despite the excitement of the night, Ezekiel liked the feeling.

“The odds we escape this mux with our hides intact are nigh unto nairn,” Jonah said, groping Ezekiel’s butt with both hands, and breathing as if he had been calving in the middle of the day.  “I’m planning to make your ass my last meal. Any problem with that, partner?”

“None nohow,” Ezekiel said. Pirooting, after all, was not the worst way to leave this vale of tears.

Jonah didn’t give him time to shuck off properly. Ezekiel felt Jonah’s rugged hands unlooping his belt and pulling down the fabric of his britches. The touch of Jonah’s plump lips against Ezekiel’s pale rump washed away the shivers of the memory of that infernal herd. 

Jonah put his mouth to the task, burning the breeze. Ezekiel, holding bunches of crumbling,  dry hay between his fingers, moaned as Jonah mopped his rosebud as if they weren’t both men-a-hanging and Satan dressed as a black muley weren't knocking at their door. Jonah’s warm hand took hold of Ezekiel’s cock and polished it like the nubbin of an old saddle. Ezekiel’s elated cry joined the cow’s dismal calls.

The stomping of their hooves, rocking the ancient hay mow, dug the old gads on their sides. Jonah mumbled something, shuffling on his knees. Ezekiel regretted mightily not having time to make an acquaintance with Jonah’s trouser varmint. It was too much to ask the good Lord...

As Ezekiel’s cock ran the old millrace like never in his life, the herd broke through the barn door. Every corner of the old building rocked with the infernal shevaree of a hundred cows raging like tortured souls.

“That was one of the first water, partner,” Ezekiel said, rushing to dress. It would be ill-mannered to meet the Lord with his britches around his ankles.

“I’m still banded, partner,” Jonah replied, picking up his lead pusher while whipping his latchpan with his thumb. “If we don’t give up the ghost, be ready to give up something else!”

Well, Ezekiel had never had a better excuse to rook the old Grim Reaper in all his born days.

After Ezekiel crossed himself, Jonah spat on the trembling planks, and they shared a resolute nod. Those cows better be ready for them. 


End file.
